My husband, the Brand Manager

It's official - Derek has been promoted to Brand Manager at ConAgra Foods. We think this is a very big deal and are very excited about it.

Derek has been reflecting on what led him to this point in his career. It's interesting to look back and see what decisions 10 years ago led us here today.

Picture it, Provo, Utah Fall 2001. Derek was a senior Marketing Communications Major and was in an afternoon lecture class at BYU. One day a guy from Stephens Hot Chocolate came and told the class about his job doing marketing for Stephens. Derek thought it sounded cool. The next week another marketer from Rhodes rolls came and talked about his job as a marketer and Derek, once again, thought that sounded like what he'd like to do. So after class he asked the guy what path he needed to take to someday do that job. Keep in mind, at this point we still didn't know the term Brand Manager or CPG (consumer packaged goods). This guy told him he needed to work for 3-5 years after his undergrad, then apply to a good MBA program. Derek had always planned on getting a masters anyway, but that pretty much cemented the idea.



So in December of 2001 he graduated from BYU (don't we look ridiculously young):

and got a job in the Marketing, Sales, and Service Division of Ford Motor Company. We started out in Dallas and then were quickly transferred to Kansas City. Derek was the guy who sold the Ford cars to the Ford dealerships. You'd think that would be an easy sale... it wasn't always.

About 2 years after he started with Ford, Derek started making plans to go to a full-time MBA program. This was exciting and scary at the same time. Going to a full time program meant giving up his job and all the benefits (including awesome new trucks every 4 months), moving and trying to figure out a way to support our little family. We were accepted to BYU and Notre Dame before we even applied to UT. What can I say, I married a Texan at heart and as soon as he was accepted, I knew we were Austin bound.

Derek worked hard at the University of Texas...as shown here with his champion bowling nerds, I mean team...

During his intense first semester back at school he attended numerous informational meetings with recruits introducing their company and the types of employment they offered. One day he came home after attending a meeting from Frito Lay. He was so jazzed about what he'd heard from them. Honestly, that day, his purpose in going back to school clicked for him and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a Consumer Packaged Goods Brand Manager. (I thought he was crazy - the man was talking about selling potato chips for a living, quite the step down from cars if you asked me. ;-) After that his course was clear. He was offered several internships for that summer and we took the one with ConAgra.

Derek was put on the Banquet team over Pot Pies. At the end of the summer they gave him a full time offer and we just couldn't turn it down.

So after he graduated in the spring of 2007 we moved to Omaha and he started working at ConAgra full time on the Healthy Choice team. He was on Healthy for 2 years and got to do a lot of fun things like trips to California to meet Julia Louis Dreyfus when she signed on as their spokesperson, or being the coordinator for the Healthy Choice Indy Car.

Then he was switched to the Banquet team, and while Banquet may not seem as cool (or as tasty) as Healthy, it's the largest brand ConAgra owns, worth almost a billion dollars, and Derek has been running the business for all the single serve entrees as well as the new dessert pot pies and several other items. And now he's been promoted. I couldn't be more proud of him!

So that's how a lecturer 10 years ago gave Derek a lead, a recruiting session 5 years ago lit the spark and here we are today.